Cyber ShockWave, a simulated cyber attack on the United States that was held this week in Washington D.C., brought together a bipartisan group of former senior administration and national security officials playing the roles of Cabinet members. The exercise simulated how the government would develop a real-time response to a large-scale cyber crisis affecting much of the nation. The simulation envisioned an attack that unfolds over a single day in July 2011. 
The simulation, which was created by former CIA Director General Michael Hayden and the BPC’s National Security Preparedness Group, led by the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Governor Thomas Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, is described as follows:
When the Cabinet convenes to face this crisis, 20 million of the nation’s smart phones have already stopped working. The attack, the result of a malware program that had been planted in phones months earlier through a popular “March Madness” basketball bracket application, disrupts mobile service for millions. The attack escalates, shutting down an electronic energy trading platform and crippling the power grid on the Eastern seaboard.
Former senior administration officials and national security experts participating in the event included Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff as National Security Advisor; Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte as Secretary of State; White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend as Secretary of
Homeland Security; Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin as Director of National Intelligence; Senator Bennett Johnston as Secretary of Energy; Director of the National Economic Council Stephen Friedman as
Secretary of Treasury; Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick as Attorney General; White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart as Counselor to the President; General Counsel of the National Security Agency Stewart Baker as Cyber Coordinator; and Deputy Commander U.S. European Command Charles F. Wald as Secretary of Defense.
Cyber ShockWave was sponsored by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, SMobile Systems, Southern Company, Georgetown University, and PayPal with contributions from Symantec Corporation.
CNN will air the event exclusively as “We Were Warned: Cyber Shockwave” on Saturday, February 20 and Sunday, February 21 at 8:00pm, 11:00pm and 2:00am ET each night.
http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/http://
